Lee Child is right that too many children are being put off reading by how literature is taught (Thrillers should be on the UK school curriculum to boost reading, 19 December). Anything that helps young people develop a reading habit is welcome. But framing the solution as thrillers versus so-called “masterpieces” risks missing the deeper issue. There needs to be more systemic change in how schools think about boys’ reading rather than simply swapping one set of books for another.
In my experience as an English teacher, despite having access to more books than ever before, schools often see books with glorified violence at the centre as “boy books”, and so fill the curriculum with this content. This does nothing to combat toxic masculinity – rather, it fosters it.
We shouldn’t patronise boys by telling them what society thinks they should become, but instead give them a bit more credit in their reading interests. I’ve had plenty of young men tearing up in my classroom when reading Jane Eyre. Encouraging kids to read this kind of book won’t solve the entire problem, but it will certainly help in making more well-rounded young men.
Louis Provis
Head of English, MyEdSpace
• How I agree with Lee Child. In the late 1970s I was teaching English to a very unmotivated year 10 group in a rural comprehensive school in Lincolnshire. To encourage them to read, we bought a set of Dick Francis novels and had a weekly shared reading lesson.
We had to feign disappointment when, nearly at the end of the novel, a group of them broke into the stock cupboard and stole copies so that they could find out what happened next. Success! Many went on to request additional Francis novels from the school library.
Jacqueline Robson
Ipswich, Suffolk
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